Just another day in the park
by Maia2
Summary: The latest villain in New York has the means to de-age citizens and heroes alike. It doesn't exactly work as he expected.


A/N: A post by Beckerbell wouldn't leave me alone. All credit to them, I just added words to this idea that I loved.  
>This was written in a couple of hours and it's not beta'd after years of no writing, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes. Feel free to point them out.<p>

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><p><strong>Just another day in the park<strong>

This day was not going as planned. Agent Mitchell leap-frogged a few more meters, hiding behind one of the thicker trees in the park to try to get closer to a frowning Natasha Romanoff who was swaddled in clothes that were now several sizes too big.

The villain of the day – a dark clad middle aged man in appropriately ridiculous flowing cape – was speechifying from atop one of the rock formations.

"YOU SHALL TREMBLE BEFORE THE INCOMPARABLE POWERS OF THE LEADER OF THE COVENANT!" could be heard loud and clear. His villainous cackle rang through the park – probably some sort of voice enhancer – while he waved an honest to goodness _wand_ at passersby.

Mitchell wondered if all villains went to a special course or if they all just watched too much Scooby Do growing up.

"I SHALL RETURN ALL OF YOU TO THE ONLY TIME YOU WERE EVER PURE!"

Mitchell moved a few more meters forward, patting his pockets and cursing the fact that today was the day there weren't any of his own kids' toys or candies stuffed somewhere in his person.

"BEFORE SOCIETY'S GREED TURNED YOU FROM THE RIGHTEOUS PATH!"

Mitchell ducked back behind a shrub to avoid the flash of purple that came his way. Not that Mr. Villain noticed, at this point, he was firing randomly in the hopes of catching Iron Man with one of his volleys.

"THE WORLD WILL BE MADE BETTER WITHOUT THE SCUM THAT LITTERS AND CORRUPTS ALL DECISION MAKING ROLES!"

Mitchell had arrived here minutes after word got out of a strange man shouting in the park and an abundance of toddlers and children running around almost naked or swaddled in too-big adult clothes. This was not the kind of thing SHIELD was called for, but being a father of two, he'd rushed to the place, expecting a much more disturbing type of bad guy, his stomach twisting in knots. Arriving to see a lunatic waving magic and turning adults into children, who then walked out of their too big outfits – as dangerous and wrong as it was – was a much less disturbing scenario. He'd made the call to the Avengers, hoping they'd be able to handle the raving man while he set up a perimeter and helped round up and contain all the victims.

Unfortunately, whatever magic the guy had concocted seemed to work on super-powered beings as well. Dr. Banner had apparently only heard as far as 'children' before anyone could stop the transformation and so the Hulk –big, unavoidable mass that he was - had been the first to get splashed with it, twice. The purple energy had clung to his skin, flashed and the next thing anyone knew there was a baby sitting amidst a pool of purple fabric. Thor had been quick to grab the child on a fly-by, narrowly missing being hit himself.

The shield did nothing to protect Cap. The magic enveloped it and moved on to surround the rest of the Hero, who also ended up as a pasty looking baby, hiccupping in his cocoon of bright red, white and blue. Iron Man had picked him up, shield and all, and had flown him away as Agent Romanoff did some of her incredible summersaults to distract the madman. She managed to avoid the purple rays for several minutes, trying to buy Hawkeye an opening to shot from his perk on one of the tallest trees.

Just as she was being hit by the magic which turned her into an adorable toddler, who did not seemed fazed at all by all the black leather that enveloped her, an almost inaudible hiss left the foliage, headed straight for the so-called sorcerer's head. Unfortunately, the guy seemed to have come prepared as some sort of force-field surrounded him and deflected the arrow.

He turned around and fired into the tree with his magic stick, not bothering to aim beyond the overall trunk, managing to, astonishingly, make the Sycamore _shrink_ about 15 feet and reduce agent Barton into a teen who was fortunately fast enough to hold on to the branch he was crouching on and move to the other side of the trunk, quickly descending and moving out of the danger zone. Smart kid.

Iron Man and Thor, being the only flying Avengers were so far doing a good job avoiding the purplish hits, but only narrowly. But neither the former's repulsor blasts nor the latter's lightning seemed to have any luck going through the force field.

"THE WORLD SHALL QUIVER BEFORE THE ONE WHO MANAGED TO SUBDUE ALL THE SO-CALLED HEROES THAT PLAGUE IT!"

As Mitchell crawled a few more feet and waved to catch Romanoff's attention, Thor –who as far as Mitchell knew firmly believed the word caution did not apply to him – landed just a few feet in front of the villain, hammer aloft, while Iron Man flew from behind to make a grab at him.

The sorcerer managed to get a shot out at Thor, who raised Mjölnir to parry, before he was physically grabbed by his cape and lifted off his feet. The magic enveloped the Asgardian, but quickly dissipated with no visible effect on him.

Mr. Covenant, however, was too busy twisting in the air to shoot at Iron Man above him. The flying suit seemed to freeze in the air releasing its cargo, before plummeting into the park's grass in a tumble of metal. Luckily, it had only been about four feet up, so hopefully Stark would be alright in there. The sorcerer tumbled a few feet forward before getting to his feet with a dramatic "A HA!" accompanied by a theatrical sweep of his cloak.

"YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME! ALL YOUR PALTRY TECHNOLOGY FADES TO NOTHING WHEN CONFRONTED WITH MY POWERS!"

As he coaxed little Natasha into his arms, Mitchell wondered if they gave these bozos points for the number of exclamation marks. The Iron Man suit's faceplate opened showing a blinking teenager who was looking around more curiously than scared or surprised. He started playing with the suit's palm reactors immediately.

"Cease your wicked sorcery, fiend!" Thor exclaimed, an exasperated frown on his face as he approached the guy menacingly.

The sorcerer seemed surprised to see him, but quickly aimed another shot. "NOT EVEN THE SO CALLED GODS CAN WITHSTAND MY MAGIC!"

The purple energy surrounded Thor again, but he just kept walking closer, his hammer ready to strike.

"MY SPELL WAS DESIGNED TO WORK ON ALL LIVING THINGS!" 'Cape' cackled as he aimed against the thunderer, "EVEN YOU SPACE ALIENS!" he shouted as a fourth or maybe fifth volley enveloped Thor, who just continued forward menacingly. "NO! STOP! This is…. NO! THIS CANNOT BE! HE SAID IT WOULD WORK! RELEA-.." the rest of his words were trampled as the demi-god's strong left hand closed around his neck.

Mitchell sighed in relief and balanced little Natasha in his arms, the little girl relaxing now that there was no more shouting. Thor took the wand out of the sorcerer's grip using his cape to avoid directly touching it, and he handed it over to one of the other agent's that came running now that there was no wild magic flying around. The artifact was placed in a lead box for transport and the exhausted magician was lowered and placed in cuffs. Mitchell could see him muttering to himself, still baffled his spell had not worked as expected. Thor just raised an eyebrow and smirked lightly.

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><p>Two hours later, Mitchell and the other agents had gathered all the little Avengers in one of Stark Tower's conference rooms.<p>

As Thor entered, he smiled and as soon as he approached, Natasha immediately giggled, extending her little arms towards him. The Thunderer chuckled and took her in his arms, as a still suited Tony Stark came over "Woah! Dude! That was AWEsome! What was that energy he was using? How come it didn't work on you? And what's with the costume?" he turned to Mitchell, "Who are all you guys? Are you FBI? CIA?" He immediately glanced around, not waiting for an answer and did a kind of headnod towards a skulking Barton, "Did you see? And how cool is this thing I'm wearing? Did I do this? I must have done it. It's totally cool, isn't it? What's with the bow? Were you on a school sports thingie at the park?"

"Breathe, friend Stark." Thor said gently, his voice attracting the attention of babies Banner and Rogers, who were being held by an agent and one of the techies respectively. Stark, surprisingly, actually shut up, looking intently at the Thunder god. "Do you think your Midgardian science will be able to revert this spell?" Thor asked the techie, gently running a finger over Steven's head who gazed adoringly up at him.

The techie hesitated, using her free hand to push a strand of hair out of her face nervously. "Well… uhm… Really, there's no… we know no…" she sighed resignedly, "we don't really know. The force field appears to be one of Doom's. They can be acquired for the right price these days. As for the rest, from our observations, we can tell the spell apparently de-ages living organisms, by around 22 to 25 years. This is explains the difference in the relative ages Stark, Rogers and Romanoff have reverted to. " She glanced at a folder in front of her, "The shrinking of the sycamore Barton had been on, a specimen dated as 60 years old by the Park Authority, seems to confirm this hypothesis. Successive applications of the spell appear to have cumulative effects, proved by Dr. Banner's current state. The Hulk was hit twice by the energy." She glanced warily up at Thor, who by now had Bruce Banner quietly wrapped around his left arm, Natasha sitting on his thigh and Steven grabbing his right index finger from his perch on agent Lopez' arms. "Mr Odinson's age is not on file, but we assume the successive applications _did_ have the intended effect on him…" She trailed off, a question in her eyes, if not her tone.

"Aye." The Asgardian nodded with a quick smirk, "The spell's span would have needed to encompass a few additional centuries for any difference beyond the length of my hair to be perceivable."

Mitchell could see Tony Stark blink owlishly at this an inaudible "whoa" falling off his lips.

"Yes, this is what we figured. Our friend Lead Sorcerer of the Covenant – still haven't managed to get a real name off his prints – was not exactly happy when he realized this little glitch in his plan. He seemed to be working under the impression that the spell de-aged things, but no exact knowledge of how. One of our teams is still working on him, but the initial assessment is he was either given or somehow stumbled onto this spell and tested it on wildlife and perhaps even humans, and was satisfied with the results."

"Don't know if you've analyzed it yet, but given some of the things he sprouted back in the park, I'd lean more towards the 'given to him' theory." Mitchell said. "At the end there, he seemed to be under the impression he had been deceived somehow."

Mitchell watched Thor's eyes widen suddenly. "Oh, I should have known." He sighed, although he appeared to be more amused and resigned than upset. At the questioning looks, he added: "It was when we were but children, and it certainly seemed to require a lot less flailing and waving of wands, but my brother once tried something similar on our teachers, when he started learning seiðr." An uncomfortable silence followed the mention of Thor's brother. Definitely not anyone's favorite villain, especially as his connection to the Thunderer ensured one of their heaviest hitters was usually not putting out his best effort in any confrontation against him. "Fear not, my companions. This is good news!" Thor continued, "The spell has an intrinsic counteraction. Time is one of the constants that seidr will ensure is secured, lest Yggdrasil completely unravels." He shook his leg up and down a bit to make Natasha giggle. "These little ones and every other affected creature will regain a year for each day that passes until they are back to their prior state."

"Whoa! Dude, that means I'm like… ugh!" was Tony's disparaged comment, followed by: "Oooh, I am totally _legal_, huh? Got any drinks?"

He was completely ignored by everyone. "Excuse me, Mr. Odinson." The techie asked, "but if the spell will reverse on its own and relatively quickly, what reason would the cr- er… Mr. Loki have for inflicting it on the Avengers? I can understand the … _amusement_ to be found in reducing earth's heroes to children, but he of course knew it'd have little to no _real_ effect on _you_."

"Clearly, you don't have little brothers do you?" Thor asked, a slight smile on his face. "For the next 10 to 12 weeks, he gets to be actually _older _than me. Believe you me; I will never get to live this down. Not ever."

As he stepped out of the room, Mitchell was glad he was getting assigned to Washington DC in three weeks. A little old fashioned political intrigue, a little backstabbing, a few conspiracies. Just regular, nice things.

God save them all from ancient space aliens and their sibling rivalry.

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><p><em>AN: I'd love to hear what you think._


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